xp_logs | LOG: Clarice and Nathan in the pool (Reply)

Clarice's fencing practice today had been lousy, she was too distracted over the fight she had had a few days earlier with Sarah to achieve any precision. All she wanted right now was to relax and pretend it hadn't happened. Which is why Nathan was in the pool.

She flopped down on a lounge chair sighing, unsnapping her jacket so she could cool off better. As usual, she had paired the traditional white jacket and cropped pants with insane socks. This time they were purple with flowers, making it look like she had suddenly sprouted flowers on her legs.

Nathan surfaced at the end of the pool, spotting Clarice. "Hey there," he said a bit hesitantly. He hadn't talked to the girl, other than in the course of classes, since their argument in the greenhouse.

"Hi," she panted, contorting her body to get the jacket off. Fencing jackets were not easy-on easy-off clothing. "Feeling better?"

He nodded, treading water and watching her. She was definitely agitated about something, but the stray thoughts she was projecting were difficult to interpret and he wasn't about to go looking. "Think I just needed to take a step back, get some perspective," he said. "Did you just come from fencing?"

"Yeah," she made a face, "Not that it helped. Normally, it helps me focus, y'know? But guh, I can't right now. Not even extra lunges did it. I've never had that happen. Mind if I join you?"

"Sure," Nathan said as he swam back to the shallow end at a pace more leisurely than the laps he'd been doing. "Big pool, after all," he said, his lips quirking in a smile.

Within seconds Clarice had stripped to her undershorts and sportsbra, falling into the pool as she hopped up and down taking off her socks. "Bluh!" she sputtered, coming up from underwater and depositing the offending sock at the side of the pool before meeting Nathan at the shallow end.

Nathan blinked at her sudden shedding of clothing but then laughed, telling himself that really, she was wearing more than some of the girls did when they trotted out the bikinis. "You all right?" he said, standing up straight.

"Sure," she said absently, surprised at all his scars. There were long ones, short ones, circles..."That looks painful."

"What... oh," Nathan said with a wry smile, realizing what she was looking at. She wasn't the first student to have seen him swimming and remarked on his scars. "They were, when I got them."

"You're not supposed to block the bullets with your body," she said, wryly. "Guess that's why you stopped."

"Not all of these are bullet holes," Nathan said, lowering himself back down into the water because it was cooler than the air, not out of any desire to hide. "But yeah, I've gotten hurt an awful lot, and it does wear you down after a while. One of the less-fun parts of the sort of life I've led."

"Seems like it's not just your life, but everything here too." Clarice mused, sittign neck deep on the stairs, "It's not enough we're mutants, but we have to go looking for trouble too."

Nathan was more or less completely positive that her last comment hadn't been aimed at him. "Are you talking about Sarah?" he asked gently.

Clarice nodded slowly. "I talked to her a few days ago. About what we talked about. And you were right. I think she'll hate me forever."

Nathan was silent for a moment, absorbing her words. "Why do you think she'll hate you?" he asked, leaving the 'You were right' alone. He wasn't big on 'I told you so' under the best of circumstances.

"I told her to accept that she's a mutant and grow up. I said a lot of mean things," she looked at Nathan, squinting in the afternoon sun, "I meant everything I said and I won't apologize for that. But she holds grudges and she refused to even consider listening."

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation... "She might not have listened now," Nathan offered, "but at least you've said it, now. You're her friend, and coming from you it might make her think."

Clarice thought about this, it did made sense. Nathan had a tendency to do that with her though. "I thought she was going to hit me the entire time, but she just made me leave. So that's a good sign, right? I just think if maybe I had done something different, she wouldn't've gotten so mad."

"I'm glad she didn't hit you," Nathan said, "but as for her getting mad..." He smiled a bit humorlessly, thinking about the incident with Betsy. "Sometimes you have to get mad, Clarice. Sometimes it takes getting mad to see things that you don't want to see."

"Like when we talked," Clarice agreed dunking her hair in the water to keep it wet, "Is it always this hard?"

"When it comes to stuff like this? Usually." Floating backwards, Nathan regarded her thought. "Apart from Sarah's reaction, how do you feel about what you said? You said you weren't going to apologize..."

She thought for a minute, twirling around the hand rail idly, "I'm not sure anyone would say she was wrong to her face like that. At least not another student. And I'm proud I did say it. I almost didn't."

"Go with your gut," Nathan advised. "I know that's easier said than done, when you've got a friend angry at you for what you've said, but when you can think a situation through like this and still feel right about it, that's a good indication you are right."

"I've never had friends like this," Clarice admitted softly, "Not ones I could say 'no' to and them still be my friend."

"A real friend is someone you can disagree with," Nathan said. "Someone who cares about you enough to butt heads with you when necessary. The friction is hard, but sometimes loyalty demands you give your friend a good, swift kick in the ass."

She smiled up at Nathan. He was the one person in the house that didn't always treat her as a child and actually gave advice that made sense. "Thanks Nathan," she said, standing up and heading out of the pool. "Still hate her being mad at me, but I guess I can live with it."

"Give her some time to process," he advised. "Before you make any decisions about what you can and can't live with." He smiled suddenly. "And Clarice?" he said. She stopped and looked back at him. "I'm proud of you, you know."

"Thanks," Clarice gathered her clothes up and practically skipped back up to the house before stopping at the door and looked back at her wet footprints. She then teleported away.